BBC’s Children in Need appeal raised £45.5m on Friday night to mark a 16% year-on-year rise against a backdrop of falling TV viewership numbers.
This year’s show resulted in a £6.3m increase from 2024, boosted by donations from celebrities including BBC Radio 2 broadcaster Sara Cox, who raised £9.5m after a 135-mile endurance challenge.
The three-hour annual telethon for the children and young people’s charity raised its highest on-the-night total since 2019, when nearly £48m was donated.
This has come despite a marked decline in on-the-night totals over the last decade since the Covid pandemic, data shows.
From a peak of £50.6m in 2018, on-the-night generally declined year-on-year to a nadir of £33.5m in 2023 – the drop attributed to fewer people watching television, with Ofcom this year reiterating that linear TV viewing was in a state of “long-term decline”.
Despite this, Friday’s appeal show, the charity’s 45th, was the second consecutive telethon to show a year-on-year rise.
Donations ‘urgently needed’
Claire Hoyle, chief campaigns and engagement officer at BBC Children in Need, said the donations were “urgently needed” as young people face “unimaginable struggles”.
“Across the UK, children and young people are facing unimaginable struggles, often carrying burdens far too heavy to bear alone.
“To every single person who gave so generously this evening, it is thanks to you all that we can help create more positive relationships, the kind that truly transform lives and futures when it is so urgently needed.”
Celebrities Mel Giedroyc, Rochelle Humes, Vernon Kay, Paddy McGuinness, Lenny Rush and Big Zuu presented this year’s show.
McFly’s Tom Fletcher and 11-year-old son Buzz performed Thread of Hope, their first duet, accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
